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What's better, RAM or CPU?

Springheel

By Springheel
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Springheel

Springheel

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I have some money to upgrade one of the labs at my school, and I'm not sure how best to spend it. It's a lab for digital publishing, so the students are primarily running Adobe CS2 (Photoshop and InDesign). Some of the comps have 2.4Ghz CPUs and 1GB of RAM. Which would improve speed more, bumping up both the CPU and RAM to 3.4Ghz and 2GB respectively, or leaving the CPU as it is and go to 4GB of RAM?

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nbohr1more

nbohr1more

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The 4GB of RAM should be a better option unless the upgrade from 2.4 to 3.4ghz also means going from single-core to dual core (or adding hyper-threading...).

 

Probably too expensive to upgrade to CS4 and stick some better graphic cards (GPU acceleration) in those stations instead, eh?

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Springheel

Springheel

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Probably too expensive to upgrade to CS4 and stick some better graphic cards (GPU acceleration) in those stations instead, eh?

 

I'd like to upgrade to CS4, but I suspect these computers only have onboard graphics.

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Glyph Seeker

Glyph Seeker

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Photoshop is very, VERY RAM hungry... You might want to check is CS2 actually supports multi core before upgrading the CPUs otherwise you might end up getting the less optimal one.

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Will turn the bullet from your coat,

Or ward the tulwar's downward blow

Strike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—

The odds are on the cheaper man."

 

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nbohr1more

nbohr1more

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Oh, CS2 will handle all the cores you can throw it:

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/10/four_cores_on_the_rampage/page11.html

 

If those workstations have PCI-E slots and you are gonna upgrade to CS4 anyway (it does use CPU if no GPU is available), then you might be better off adding a little RAM and some cheap "low form-factor" PCI-E cards.

Edited by nbohr1more

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Baddcog

Baddcog

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Yeah, you're probably more concerned with memory amount than cpu speed as far as PS goes.

 

I suppose it's XP so XP is using about 1/2 of your ram, then get a large file open > ram bottleneck>lag

 

I just upgraded a few work comps ram as it was the cheapest solution. They each had a gig and I bought (2) 1 gig sticks at New Egg for $50.

 

Just make sure you get the correct amount of pins. Luckily all our comps used the same 184 pin ram so it was easy to do.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Xarg

Xarg

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If it's xp32b don't bother going to 4gb ram, you won't ever use almost a full gig of it. Better to do the cpu/ram upgrade

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Tels

Tels

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They ALL have only 1 GB of ram.

 

I'd say RAM. It is plug-in-and-be-done, and is inexpensive. Also, 1 Gb is not enough for Win XP and most workloads, and if you run out of RAM, swapping causes everything to lag.

 

Upgrading the CPU can cause problems (might not fit motherboard (new motherboard => expensive!), power supply might not be strong enough (expensive again), or BIOS says "uh I don't know this brandnew CPU" causing a BIOS update (can turn into a major hassle). Plus, if your system is going into swap, the faster CPU will not help at all.

 

I am not sure that upgrading beyond 3 Gbyte is worth it, tho. If its a 32 bit system, you won't be able to use more than 3.3 .. 3.7 Gbyte, anyway, and 2 * 2 or 1 * 4 Gbyte sticks might be much more expensive than either:

 

* buy 2 * 1 Gbyte sticks and replace the old one (if you have a CPU with a dual-channel memory controller, having two sticks with the same interface means it can access the RAM faster)

* or buy 2 * 1 Gbyte and stick them in additional to the 1 Gbyte (might give you cheap 3 Gbyte)

* last resort: buy the same speed of 1 Gbyte stick and put it in additional to the one you have

 

You can run memtest to determine the speed of the RAM before and after upgrade.

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Baddcog

Baddcog

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New Egg sale

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145505&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL063011&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL063011-_-EMC-063011-Index-_-DesktopMemory-_-20145505-L02A

 

MOST likely that's what towers of that age (I'm assuming P4 XP) would use.

 

. It's 5 per customer. 184 pin, 3200. That's what I put in machines at work of that age. $28.99 plus $5 rebate per stick, pretty decent price, not sure how long it'll last.

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